Thanks to @bengoldacre for pointing me in the direction of this truly interesting chap, Andy Kadir-Buxton. My impression is that Andy is either a delusional fantasist, or a true genius who has contributed so much to the world already, and could potentially cure an awful lot of the world’s ills, if only people would act [...]

This is one of those ones that I have to thank twitter for. If @brucel hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have come across Dries Buytaert’s post ‘we are small and insignificant’. And more important, I might not have seen this image. You may need to zoom into it in order to really understand. For those [...]

At least, that’s how the statistic was presented to me. Christians more likely to support torture: God must be turning in his grave http://rly.cc/67ANF@bengoldacre Only if you actually look at the research itself, that’s not quite what it’s telling us. For example, there are estimated to be around 2 billion adherents to Christianity (one third [...]

I knew I would like this book. It’s the same sort of thing as the book Risk, which I loved, and Freakonomics, which I loved. It’s not so much a book, as a toolbox. In that sense it is similar to Carl Sagan’s The Demon-haunted World: Science as a candle in the Dark. A toolbox [...]

Let us see what gives you cancer these days, eh? Or at least increases the risk of you getting it. Eating grapefruit increases the risk of breast cancer Dairy products increase the risk of prostate cancer one glass of wine per day increases the risk of many cancers long term use of nutrient supplements increases [...]

I love books that make me think. I love books that say something controversial. I love books where I can listen to the arguments that someone else puts forward, and then decide whether or not I agree with them. Michael Brooks’ book 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense: The Most Intriguing Scientific Mysteries of Our [...]

It’s National Donor Day, to celebrate and commemorate those people who give blood, or donate organs after their death and keep other people going. It’s a good cause, so I thought it worthy of mentioning on the blog. However, what with me being, well … me, I thought the best way to handle such a [...]

I was a little concerned to hear today that: Sex offenders will be made to take lie detector tests as part of probation conditions when they are freed from prison, the Ministry of Justice says. BBC News: Lie tests tried on sex offenders Firstly, before I explain, I will qualify. I am not against people [...]

Technically, we’re not actually descended from monkeys. As I understand it, us and monkeys are both descended from a separate common ancestor. So we’re descended from the idiomatical monkey’s uncle. Or at least, that’s the commonly accepted evolutionary belief. It’s also accepted by me, so you’re not going to hear any arguments about it here. [...]

The home secretary has told MPs she was “surprised” and “disappointed” by a drugs adviser likening the dangers of ecstasy to the dangers of horse riding.BBC News: Drugs adviser criticised by Smith Later in the article the BBC suggest that more than 100 people die per year from horse-riding, and around 30 die from ecstasy. [...]